Odette Annable Joins 'Supergirl': 'Everyone Will Have a Relationship With Sam'

Cloverfield’s Odette Annable is joining Supergirl as DC Comics villain Reign—which means the new season of the superhero series has to rule, right? Here’s a primer on the legendary character.

1 She’s a ticking time bomb. The season finale showed Reign being sent to Earth from Krypton as an infant. She was genetically created on that planet to be a weapon of mass destruction, executive producer Andrew Kreisberg says. “But she has no idea! She has been living in National City as [a now grown-up] person named Samantha Arias.”

2 She is breaking the Arrowverse’s “evil” mold. “One thing we’ve never done on Arrow or The Flash is watch the villain become the villain,” Kreisberg says. “Sam is just Sam.” But as the season progresses, the working single mom “will realize there is something different about her,” Kreisberg continues. “It’s a fun dark-mirror version of the journey Christopher Reeve took in the original Superman as Clark.”

3 She’ll divide the team. Sam will develop connections with Supergirl’s core characters…which will cause friction down the road. “Everyone will have a relationship with her, and that will drive much of the season in terms of how far they’re willing to go to stop her when she becomes Reign,” Kreisberg explains. “Some will believe she needs to be saved; others will think she needs to be stopped.”

Supergirl, Returns Oct. 9, 8/7c, The CW

This article also appeared in the Sept. 18–Oct. 1 issue of TV Guide Magazine